We first saw the Karma concept car on display at the Detroit auto show nearly half a decade ago. Even in nimble start-ups, creating a game-changing vehicle like the Karma takes significant time.

There is good news, however. EPA certification is the final hurdle preventing Fisker from selling the Karma in the U.S., and since the numbers are finally in, the company will start importing the cars “now-ish,” with the first 39 arriving on our shores from Finland in about 2 weeks. Luxury buyers are likely not as concerned with the fuel economy figures as they are with the beauty of this beast, so we expect Fisker will build incrementally on this performance and still do just fine. Plus, 32 miles isn’t far off from our real-world 37-mile range in the Chevy Volt, which also aimed at 50 miles on electric power, so most people driving these cars near cities could stay away from all-gasoline mode entirely. Company co-founder and CEO Henrik Fisker says he expects most customers will beat the EPA numbers to achieve that 50-mile figure.

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lazyreaderOctober 20, 2011 at 11:49 am

So a moderate priced automobile that does get 30 mpg get almost no recognition for being greener than the Karma. Especially since the moderate priced car like say “Nissan Elantra” gets over 30 mpg highway, costs far less and is built in the U.S. What’s the carbon impact of shipping a pricey sedan across Europe. After years of hype, Leonardo DiCaprio finally got his hands on a Fisker Karma, after all he needs it more. The car is assembled in Uusikaupunki, Finland, but not before the approval by the US Department of Energy in September 2009 to loan 529 million dollars of your and our stimulus money to Fisker Automotive, and the franchise suddenly had nearly 1 billion in total capital and a concrete business plan to fulfill (paying foreign workers to build cars overseas). However a requirement of the government loan is that some of the money be spent building or renovating a manufacturing facility in the US, in order to ensure manufacturing jobs are not shipped overseas. Fisker fulfilled its obligation by purchasing GM’s former Wilmington Assembly plant in Delaware for 20 million dollars, and plans to start production of its next generation Electric Vehicles with extended range there in late 2012. The company expects to create more than 2,000 jobs there (hopefully). Building a new plant would have cost well over 1 billion dollars. Because of their outsourcing model, the company claims that it can make a profit from selling just 15,000 cars. Considering the limited level of otherwise cheaper Nissan leafs and Chevy Volt’s that have been sold. In this economy, I’m skeptical as to how many of these 100,000 dollar+ cars they’ll sell.